“Hose, You Idiot. PantyHose“

A West Virginia convenience store was the scene of what will very likely be one of the top ten Criminal Mastermind stories of all time. A would be holdup man entered the store with a pair of women's panties on his head as a disguise. His weapon? A cigarette lighter shaped like a pistol.

The store clerk refused to cooperate with the Dillinger wanna-be. He ended up running away. 

INWOOD — What a cashier first thought of as a practical joke turned into no laughing matter for a Ranson man who was arrested Wednesday after using women’s underwear and a lighter shaped like a small gun in an attempt to rob a convenience store.

Steven Clay Stephenson, 34, of North Mildred Street, was arrested shortly after the attempted robbery when he was caught with another man after stealing a tire. Police found both the lighter, shaped like a small caliber pistol, and three lug nuts from the stolen tire when they searched him. He was charged with attempted armed robbery, driving under the influence, petit larceny and having improper registration.

“He entered the store wearing a pair of women’s pajama shorts over his face,” Sgt. T.C. Kearns of the West Virginia State Police said Wednesday. “I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.”

At about 4 a.m. Wednesday, Trooper J.D. Schuessler went to the ROCS Shell gas station and convenience store at 4701 Gerrardstown Road in Inwood for an armed robbery complaint.

The cashier told Schuessler that a man

dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans came in with a pair of women’s underwear over his face.

“At first she (the cashier) thought it was a joke,” Kearns said.

Stephenson then pulled out what appeared to be handgun and demanded money.

“She was unsure if it was an actual gun or a cigarette lighter in the figure of a gun, which the store used to sell,” Schuessler wrote in the criminal complaint filed in Berkeley County Magistrate Court.

One wonders if the new Professor Moriarty actually bought the lighter at the same store. It's probably best that the genius only remembered the panty part of his disguise. As bright as he appears to be, had he worn pantyhose for the robbery, they would have been on his legs.